The Gary Bettman Appreciation Thread

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rekrul

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Mar 7, 2003
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What I don't get is the only time he had full passion and vigor was this labor battle, which he really needed to win. But a few years ago when rule changes went in for all of the obstruction/hooking/cluching and 2/3 of the leagues GMs and coaches whined that their teams were out of sorts ( IE they couldn't control the flow like before ) Bettman& NHL front office folded like a cheap rental chair. SO Bettman has the stones to kill the season to break the union's hold on salary structure but he couldn't tell the GMs to suck it up and deal....WTF?

For anyone simply ask this Is the NHL better now than when he took it over in '92? Better TV preseance IMO was a solid effort but really was riding the tide of Gretzky in LA, Mario and NYR teams. I'll give him credit for sponcership deals, those have been very underrated, shows the business side is pretty sharp. But the 20 team playoff is very quick $$ grab, which allways blows up in the face of the NHL ( Sportchanel deal late 80's during oilers run, Quick expasion for the $50 mil). If Gary can not rein in the tradionial nit wits which make bad judgements on simple money grabs this league is DOOMED...

lets have a quick litmus test, Goes through with 20 team playoff and cheapens the regular season. Gets no national Solid TV presance ( NBC deal rather weak ) and new product still gets stangnated. I would have to say Bettman easily has left the NHL is WORSE shape than when he took over.

However if he somehow can convice sponcerships, a desent TV package and most importantly on ice product improves. I might hold out Judgement for a few more years. Bring back the NHL from the dead is all Gary B has to do.
 

nyr7andcounting

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Feb 24, 2004
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Montrealer said:
Yeah, you big dummy!

"Sir, we don't water down our beer. We thin out our beer."

:sarcasm:
Watered down talent means the talent is worse than it used to be.

Thinned out talent means that, eventhough the talent is better, it's spread over more teams than it should be...which is the case in the NHL
 

Crazy_Ike

Cookin' with fire.
Mar 29, 2005
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No, watered down and thinned out mean exactly the same thing. Dictionary.com even gives them the same synonym (dilute) and "water down" is actually defined in one place as "thinning".

You water down, say, alcohol, to make it weaker. Like American beer.

You thin out paint to make it weaker.

They are the same thing.

Maybe they weren't MEANT to be the same thing, but that is the fault of the poster in that case for not knowing what the phrase means.

By the way, more talent came in from the opening of Europe and advances in the US than was made available through expansion. This means, even though there are more teams, the teams are in fact more talented than teams from the '80s.

So no, that's NOT the case in the NHL, no matter what you league-haters might *want* it to be.
 
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